"Ives's voice…had the sheen and finesse of opera without its latter-day Puccinian vulgarities and without the pretensions of operatic ritual. It was genteel in expressive impact without being genteel in social conformity. And it moved people."

Burl Ives (June 14, 1909 – April 14, 1995) was an Academy Award–winning actor, author, and renowned folk singer. After dropping out of school at an early age, he roamed the countryside looking for work as a singer. He eventually found work in New York City, both as a singer and an actor. After missing out on most of World War II, Ives began his career in film.

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Burl Icle Ivanhoe Ives[2] was born in Hunt City Township in Jasper County, Illinois, on June 14, 1909;[1][4] the youngest of six children.[5] His father was a tenant farmer and the family moved often during his childhood. Ives and his siblings were introduced to music early in life. During his youth, his mother loved singing,[6] and Ives was taught myriad songs by his grandmother. He began performing those songs in public for twenty-five cents to help support his family,[5] starting at age four with a performance for a veterans reunion.[6] He soon learned how to play guitar and banjo to accompany his vocals.[7] Ives was a member of the Lone Scouts of America, an organization that aimed to teach self-reliance and respect through the study of American Indian tradition. That organization was incorporated into the Boy Scouts of America in 1924 and Ives later spent a great deal of time supporting the Boy Scouts.[8]

Ives went to school in Hunt City, Illinois.[6] In high school, he played American football, and when he went on to Eastern Illinois State Teacher's College in 1927, he joined the school's team and planned to become a coach. However, while listening to a lecture on Beowulf one day in his junior year,[5] he came to the conclusion he was not learning anything of value and dropped out, leaving the class then and there.[9] He then roamed the country to pursue a musical career,[1] earning the nickname "The Wayfaring Stranger," which he went on to use for his shows, albums and autobiographies.[7]

Ives traveled the county and performed songs wherever possible, supporting himself by working on riverboats and other odd jobs.[6] In his travels, during which he called himself "Burl Ives, the Vagabond Lover,"[5] he endured many hardships. In Mona, Utah, he was jailed for singing a banned song: "Foggy Foggy Dew." In 1931, he took up residence in Indiana, where he not only got a job at WBOW radio, but returned to school, at Indiana State Teachers College.[9] Ives took voice lessons from Madame Clara Lyon in Terra Haute, Indiana.[6] In 1937, he took up residence in New York,[1] where he attended the Juilliard School and the New York University School of Music. He sang in Greenwich Village cafes and performed in stock acting companies while simultaneously continuing his voice training with Ella Toedt and taking acting lessons from Benno Schneider.[6][7]

In 1938, Ives appeared in the Broadway musical The Boys from Syracuse. Making a living by singing in clubs,[1] Ives performed on the CBS radio show Forecast,[6] which led to the network granting him his own radio program, The Wayfaring Stranger, starting in 1940.[1] He was able to popularize several songs during that period, notably "Lavender Blue," "Foggy Foggy Dew," "Blue Tail Fly," and "Big Rock Candy Mountain." During this time he also continued his Broadway career with Heavenly Express in 1940,[9] and performed at the well-regarded Village Vanguard club in Greenwich Village.[6] Ives was drafted into the army for World War II in 1942, and in the following year he appeared in Irving Berlin'sThis is the Army, a musical production aimed at raising troop morale.[5] He also made recordings for the United States Office of War Information and briefly hosted a radio show called G.I. Jive, which played at military outposts overseas.[6] Later in 1943, he was discharged due to medical concerns,[5] after which he continued his entertainer career by hosting another CBS radio program from from 1943 to 1944. He appeared in the Broadway folk music revue Sing Out, Sweet Land! in 1944,[6] which earned him a Donaldson Award.[7] During that time he also recorded a handful of songs for minor commercial label companies such as "Mule Train" and "Ghost Riders in the Sky."[6] In 1945, he married a scriptwriter, Helen Peck Ehrich, with whom he adopted a son named Alexander.[10]

Following the war's conclusion in 1945, Ives was signed to a minor label, Stinson, before moving to Decca,[2] which was familiar with Ives from producing the Sing Out, Sweet Land! soundtrack.[7] He made his screen debut as "Willie" in Louis King's Smoky, the second film adaptation of Will James' horse story, which was released in 1946.[11] From 1946 to 1948 he again hosted another radio show, called The Burl Ives Show, for the Mutual Broadcasting System.[6][7] Ives continued to perform regularly in nightclubs during that time.[7] In 1948 he appeared in two Western films, Green Grass of Wyoming and Station West, and the Walt Disney Pictures family film So Dear to My Heart, in which he sang the songs "Billy Boy" and "Lavender Blue."[6]So Dear to My Heart proved to be Ives' breakthrough film performance,[7] and "Lavender Blue" became his first chart hit.[2] Ives wrote his first book in 1948, an autobiography called The Wayfaring Stranger.[9] In 1949, he appeared in the Broadway comedy She Stoops to Conquer.[6] Following that success, he moved to Columbia Records, where he continued to flourish in the industry. Despite his success at Columbia, Ives eventually returned to Decca, where he continued to have successive hits.[2]

The Red Channels pamphlet endangered Ives's career.

Ives initially displayed liberal political convictions and was a member of Hollywood Fights Back, a movement by entertainers in the late 1940s to counter the actions of the House Un-American Activities Committee in identifying Communists in the entertainment industry.[6] Ives was listed as being a member of a left-wing group in the Red Channels pamphlet, and was blacklisted by the government until he stood before the House Un-American Activities Committee and convinced them otherwise. In the process, he named names and labeled several of his colleagues as Communists. That act allowed Ives to continue his work in the industry, and he went on to work in both the music industry and the film industry,[1] although he was accused of betraying his colleagues and political beliefs to save his career.[6]

Ives' popularity as a singer grew with that of the rising popularity of folk music following World War II, which led him to record several songs such as "The Cowboy's Lament," "Hush Little Baby," "John Henry," "Noah Found Grace in the Eyes of the Lord," "On Top of Old Smoky," and "Sweet Betsy From Pike." He also recorded more than 120 songs for Historical America in Song, a six-album collection released by Encyclopædia Britannica Films. In 1950, Ives starred with Audie Murphy in the Western film Sierra.[6] He also continued to appear in several notable New York theater roles throughout the decade, including Show Boat and Paint Your Wagon, the latter of which led to him starring in the national tour from 1952 to 1953.[7] In 1953, Ives composed two new song books: the Burl Ives Song Book,[12] which included 115 folk songs, and Burl Ives' Sea Songs of Sailing, Whaling and Fishing, which included 68 songs.[6] He followed those up with the book Tales of America the next year.[13] In 1955, he portrayed Big Daddy in the Tennessee Williams play Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, which earned him critical praise and became arguably his most famous role.[6][7]

"It was Frosty who would become the most famous snowman in history, undoing five years of groundwork laid by snowman look-alike Burl Ives and his masterful performance in Rudolph, the Re-Nosed Reindeer. Ives really took the role by the snowballs and made it his own, classing up the snowman's persona through star power, fancy clothes, and bling-bling. He's the standard by which other snowman narrators are now measured."

Also in 1964, Ives earned a Grammy Award for his children's album, Chim Chim Cheree and Other Children's Choices.[7] Additionally, he portrayed a genie in the fantasy comedy The Brass Bottle and appeared in the Mister Roberts sequel Ensign Pulver. In 1966, he provided a voice for the animated film The Daydreamer. He also hosted his own television special called The Burl Ives Thanksgiving Special in 1968. Ives returned to the Broadway stage in the melodrama play Dr. Cook's Garden, where he played a small-town doctor who approved of euthanasia.[6] Throughout the mid to late 1960s and into the early 1970s, Ives had a popular run on television as the lead roles on both O.K. Crackerby! from 1966 to 1969 and The Bold Ones: The Lawyers from 1969 to 1972. In 1972, he starred in an episode of Rod Serling'sNight Gallery: "The Other Way Out."[14] After those shows, he worked the majority of the time with Walt Disney Studios on movies meant for children.[2]

In 1962, Ives won the Grammy Award for Best Country Western Recording for "Funny Way of Laughin." Later that decade, Ives returned to Columbia, where he recorded such ballads as "The Times They Are A-Changin'" and "Softly and Tenderly."[2] He also received another Grammy nomination for his 1974 family album, America Sings.[7] Although they became less frequent, Ives continued to make film appearances in the 1970s, including the 1970 drama The McMasters, the 1976 family film Baker's Hawk, and the 1979 comedy Just You and Me, Kid.[6] In 1971, Ives was divorced from Peck, and two months later married Dorothy Koster Paul. Peck was awarded custody of Alexander, and Ives adopted his new wife's three children: Rob, Kevin and Barbara.[10] After a long hiatus from recording, Ives recorded one last major album, "Payin' My Dues Again," before relegating himself to children's and religious music. Upon reaching the age of 70 in 1979, Ives retired to Washington State with his wife and children.[2][14] Even after retirement, however, he appeared in the science-fiction film Earthbound in 1981 and the racial drama White Dog in 1982.[6]

"Burl Ives, whose sweet, strong, mournful way with folk ballads made him an international singing star in the 1940's and whose earthy acting won him an Academy Award in the 1950's, died yesterday at his home in Anacortes, Wash. He was 85."

Ives worked much less often after Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure. His final film performance was in the 1988 erotic thriller Two Moon Junction, and he released his final album, The Magic Balladeer, in 1993.[7] In the early 1990s, the creators of the cult animated Ren & Stimpy Show used stock audio of Ives in order to have him "guest star" on the show. When he heard of what they had done, Ives claimed that he would have recorded it for real, had they asked.[14] Ives died on April 14, 1995 in Anacortes, Washington due to oral cancer.[2][7] Survived by his wife and children,[10] Ives was interred in Jasper County at Mound Cemetery. Decca continued to release Ives' records for many years after his death.[2]